Could More Have Been Done To Protect Jennifer Martel?

Last week's killing in Massachusetts of Jennifer Martel shows once again why domestic violence is so difficult, yet so essential, to curb.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley is right to call for a review of this terrible case and of the state's domestic violence laws.

Ms. Martel, 27, was stabbed to death by Jared Remy, 34, who lived with her and their 4-year-old daughter in Waltham, Mass. All indications are that she was aware of the danger of staying with Mr. Remy, who is described as a violent, controlling bully with a hair-trigger temper. A close friend said Ms. Martel "wanted to leave" — yet she did not or could not.

It is an unfortunately common scenario.

Mr. Remy, the son of Red Sox broadcaster and former second baseman Jerry Remy, has been charged with domestic assault and battery and murder.

The day before the killing, he was arraigned at Waltham District Court on charges that he had slammed Ms. Martel's face into a bathroom mirror in their townhouse.

Incredibly, prosecutors released him without bail, but with a one-night restraining order. When that restraining order was not renewed, he returned home, where he is said to have slashed Ms. Martel numerous times, killing her.

The local district attorney's office later said that letting Mr. Remy go was "appropriate, given what we knew." That's hard to understand, given his lengthy criminal record, including more than a dozen arrests and two previous allegations of assaulting women.

Mr. Remy could have been held under the so-called "dangerousness law," passed 20 years ago in Massachusetts. It was used to hold him in an earlier beating involving another woman in 2005.

Yet his release, with such tragic results, shows what a complex, pernicious tangle domestic abuse often is.

Ms. Martel did not show up in court for his hearing, which according to experts is not unusual. Her family has told the Boston Globe that Mr. Remy's mother begged her not to file a complaint. Boston Medical Center's domestic violence program manager also told the Globe that the victim could have feared that "getting [Mr. Remy] into legal trouble would lead to future abuse."

Such fears, sadly, are often justified. Yet ending an abusive relationship is essential, no matter how difficult — even impossible — it may seem. The alternative, too often, is death.